As you crouch beneath a half-open metal shutter to descend into Beezlebub’s Cave, an uncanny whimsy permeates. Much like Alice’s multi-stage descent down her rabbit hole, a plain anteroom leads to a large set of double-doors which, in turn, lead to a bona fide metal clubhouse. And much like the inscription Dante reads upon crossing Hell’s gates — Abadon hope all ye who enter — The Cave also has a welcome sign. BEEZELBUB’S CAVE, big and in script, hangs like a wreathe over the entrance, with a small banner draped below quoting Shakespeare: “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

Like a rock and roll TGIFriday’s stripped of the kitsch and chicken tenders, the wall is a solid quilt of metal interwoven imagery from every variant and sub-genre: heavy, hair, speed, thrash, stoner. The rectangular warehouse space resembles a metal pantheon where the gods have come to retire in their truest format: the glossy, pinned-at-the-corner poster. It’s as though the walls of international metalheads have been pieced together to form a one room metal megalopolis.

A massive pentagram broodingly fills the tile floor, ominously suggesting that at any moment the proceedings at hand may turn sinister, otherworldly, or both.